Mayor Eric Adams heading south of the border to advise asylum seekers about current situation in New York City
NEW YORK -- After getting only limited help from the Biden administration to stop the flow of asylum seekers, Mayor Eric Adams is taking matters into his own hands.
He's traveling south of the border to tell people not to expect a warm welcome here.
"No vengas aqui" means "Don't come here" in Spanish, and although the message probably won't be printed on the jacket Adams wears to tour the jungles of Colombia, that's his message to the people he'll meet on a three-country trip to Central America and South America.
"We're going to tell them that coming to New York doesn't mean you're going to stay in a five-star hotel. It doesn't mean that the mere fact you come here you're automatically going to be allowed to work. We're going to tell them what the real conditions are, the large number, thousands of people, are living in congregant settings," Adams said.
READ MORE: Gov. Kathy Hochul announces program to help Venezuelan asylum seekers find jobs and leave shelters
A new increase in asylum seekers -- 600 per day, 4,200 per week, and a city with no more room at the inn is forcing the mayor to do what the federal government has not done -- tell people fleeing oppression and economic deprivation that New York City is not the only place to realize the American dream.
"We know that there's a propaganda machine, that basically it has given the false promise of what life is like of being a migrant and asylum seeker, and we want to be honest with those who live in these regions," Adams said.
The Adams administration is warning that like last spring we may soon see people sleeping outside the city's intake center at The Roosevelt Hotel while they wait for beds to open up.
"New Yorkers should prepare that you're going to see lines over the next coming weeks and months because again there is a surge at the border. New York City is out of capacity," Cheif of Staff Camille Joseph Varlack said.
READ MORE: Inwood High School for Excellence and Innovation adapts to asylum seeking students
The mayor's trip starts will start in Mexico City and then moves to Puebla, a town where many Mexican migrants come from. Then it's on to Quito, Ecuador and then Bogata, Colombia and the dangerous Darien gap, the jungle many asylum seekers pass through on their way to the United States.
The mayor says at each stop there's going to be a media blitz, asking his team to get local news outlets to publicize his message. City Immigration Commissioner Manuel Castro, who speaks Spanish, will be with him.
"They are going to attempt to get me on as many stations, newspapers, radios, TVs in these areas to give people the honest truth," Adams said.
Murad Awawdeh, the executive director of the New York Immigration Coalition, said he does not believe the mayor's trip is going to have any effect on how many people come to New York City. Instead, he said the mayor should focus on making the city's shelter system more efficient.
"He has the power in this moment to reform our shelter system that quickly helps people unhoused get into permanent housing. That will then assist the shelter system into not having to continuously expand," Awawdeh said.
Unlike Gov. Kathy Hochul, the mayor is not trying to get the White House to close the border. He wants the president and Congress to embark on a decompression strategy, where the asylum seekers are spread out over the country. He said the decision to grant Venezuelan migrants temporary protected status, TPS, so they can work, only dealt with a small part of the problem.
"I've always been the person that I need to go on the ground," Adams said.
And speaking of being on the ground, here in New York City, the administration is set to file court papers to ask a court to place new restrictions on the right-to-shelter law.
By the way, the mayor is paying his own way. Taxpayers will pick up the costs of his security detail.
